I Can Only Be Who God Made Me to Be

Amelia Bentrup reflects on how she came to discern God’s will for her life by realizing she needed to be who God made her to be. 

Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. ... But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. ... But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If [one] part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. (1 Corinthians 12:14-15, 18-20, 24b-27) 

This was the Second Reading from Mass a few weeks ago. It struck me particularly hard because I have been thinking a lot about upcoming changes in our family and discerning next steps and proper timing. I keep coming back to the thought that I can only be who God made me to be.  

Time wasted thinking of what I should have been

I have spent years of my motherhood thinking I should be someone other than I am. I thought I should be more domestic, that I should keep a cleaner house, that I should be into gardening and baking bread, canning vegetables and raising chickens. And all of those things are worthy, wonderful ventures. Many moms are called to that, but I have come to realize that I am not.  

I have stayed home with my kids for many years, 22 to be exact, and homeschooling for 17 of those years, and by far my favorite part of staying home with my children was when we weren’t home. I loved playdates and outings and leading breastfeeding support meetings and teaching at homeschool coops. I enjoyed taking my kids to sports practices, dance classes and theatre rehearsals. My favorite weeks were the ones where we had something on our calendar every single day.  

Sure, I enjoyed the quiet day at home once in a while, but mostly I dreaded cancelled activities due to illness or snow. I never considered myself an extravert, but too many days at home without someplace to go leaves me depressed and anxious.  

Truth is, I have come to realize I am not a particularly domestic person. I have zero desire to go through the effort of growing my own vegetables when I can just buy them at the store in the exact quantities I need. In my mind, the Ideal Amelia would own lots of animals and raise cows and goats and horses; Realistic Amelia knows that those animals would just end up being really expensive pets that would run helter-skelter, wreaking havoc as soon as one of the fences broke because my husband and I would both be too incompetent to fix it.  

I always assumed that as my kids got older and started to grow up and leave the nest, that I would continue to stay at home and find some worthy, wonderful, grace-filled way to stay busy while keeping the flexibility of staying at home and being always available to my family. But I have come to discern a different path for myself and my family.   

Separating the ideal from the real

I have started to realize that I have to separate Ideal Amelia from the Realistic Amelia that God created me to be. I will never have a spotlessly clean house because I will never be able to muster up the energy to care about dusty baseboards or little bit of grime under the toilet bowl rim. Clean enough is my motto. I will never have a perfectly decorated house because I simply don’t care about home decor.  

I will never be happy or content just working from home because I crave outside interaction and being around people and a regular routine that gets me out of the house.   

God didn’t make me the ideal version of myself that I hold in my mind. He didn’t create me to be the person I think I should be. He created me to be the person that I am. As my nest gets emptier and my kids grow up, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is next for me. And while I still have several years before my nest is completely empty, I have found that life has changed and God may be calling us in a new direction.  

As I think about the changes that we are planning in our family, I have had to let go of my ideal version of myself. I have come to realize that God created me for a purpose, and sometimes that purpose can change as life changes. I may not be who I think I should be, but I am exactly who God made me to be.  

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Copyright 2025 Amelia Bentrup
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